Contents

Who Qualified and Who Was Mentioned

Although only a few people per county qualified for a settlement, the application papers of the Southern Claims Commission typically include questions mentioning hundreds of their neighbors. Neighbors of all races, and classes were questioned and discussed in these records.

had quartermaster stores or supplies officially taken by or furnished to the Union Army during the rebellion

Southern Loyalists (those who were Union sympathizers) made 22,298 claims for property losses totaling $60,258,150.44. However, only 7,092 claims (32%) were approved for settlements totaling $4,636,920.69. Each claimant sought to prove their loyalty and loss through the testimony of others. The paper trail created by the claimants and the people who came forward to testify, for or against a claimant, provide a wealth of information about individuals living in the South during the Civil War.

Content of the Records

Southern Claims Commission records may include information about people of all classes, all races, all political/military backgrounds, and explain their relationships potentially including:

personal descriptions, and accounts of events during the war

military records of claimants, or their relatives

letters, diaries, and family Bible records

wills, property inventories, and probate records

Strategy for Finding Ancestors

The most effective strategy is to search all the Southern Claims Commission records for everyone living in the same Southern county as an ancestor. Any particular ancestor is unlikely to have actually applied to the Commission (only 0.2 percent of population), but he or she is more likely to have testified (2.3 percent) about an applicant, and an ancestor is even more likely to be discussed (about 10 ? percent) in the hundreds of answers to questions in other people's testimony. This is an advanced, time-consuming strategy with a less than 50 percent chance of locating information about your ancestor. But you will learn about the way of life in the county where your ancestor lived, and much about relationships between his or her neighbors.

Steps of Using SCC Records

These are the steps to use to find all the Southern Claims Commission records in a county. This strategy will involve reading thousands of manuscript pages with no guarantee you will find a particular ancestor mentioned in them.

Step 1. Determine the Southern county where an ancestor lived.

Use family records, census, county histories, or other records to identify the residence of an ancestor during the Civil War from 1861-1865.

Step 2. Printout all the claimants in that county from the"Geographical List of Claimants."

Availability

The records have not all been filmed or fiched, note the chart below to learn what is currently available through the National Archives; the Family History Library (FHL) has not accquired them as of April 2009. As noted below search on line sites for additional information. Chart prepared by Joan E. Healey